Sins of the Father
by Mandy of the Amoeba
Summary: PG-13 for language. Short little fic told from the POV of Rita Skeeter as she reflects on why she is what she is. Please, R/R, it won't take you very long.


A/N; I have no idea what possessed me to write this.  I just felt like writing a songfic, and I found the lyrics to this song....oh, it's by Jewel, by the way, she owns it, not me.  Anyway, I just started playing that wonderful "What If?" game, and this is what came of it. It's told from Rita Skeeter's POV.  I know that the ages don't' really work, she's a few years too old for this to make a lot of sense, but if you don't worry about the technicalities......just enjoy.  Oh, wait, one more note!  This in NO WAY reflects my personality....I love my dad more than anyone else in the world and think he's the greatest.  Um, just had to clear that up.  NOW, enjoy the fic. :)  
  
  
  
  
_My bones are tired, Daddy  
I don't get enough sleep  
I don't eat as good as I should, Daddy  
What's that say about me?  
Sometimes I sleep past noon, Daddy  
Drink lots of black coffee and I smoke like a chimney,  
Yes, I left the refrigerator door half open, Daddy  
What's that say about me?  
  
  
_You'd be amazed at how much the way a person is raised reflects on what they become.  Often, that reflection isn't easy to see, because the image has been inverted by one of those fun-house mirrors, and it ends up so twisted and switched around that no one would ever guess what the original picture looked like.    
  
That's how my life is.  I know what they all think of me, and I know their opinions on what my childhood must have been like, but not a word of it's true.  They look at my bright, false colors and think I'm tacky because that's how I was raised.  They probably think I get my taste from my mother and my habits from my father.  In truth, my mother died when I was very young, too young to be influenced by her.  And as for my father....I guess it's true that he's what made me who I am today.  Him and his spotless house, his spotless record, his spotless personality.  Early to bed and early to rise, that was one of his many mottos.  No snacking, no junk food at all.  Not even dessert after Sunday dinner.   Oh yes, I know all of his morals and mottos by heart.  They're burned into my mind, stamped in by him.  
_  
  
Sometimes I want to rip out your throat, Daddy  
For all those things you said that were mean,  
Gonna make you just as vulnerable as I was, Daddy  
What's that say about me?  
Sometimes I want to bash in your teeth, Daddy  
Gonna use your tongue as a stamp  
Gonna rip your heart out the way you did mine, Daddy  
Go ahead and psychoanalyze that  
  
  
_I've always thought he was a bastard, ever since I was old enough to learn the word.  I used to keep a diary, and that's how I always referred to him.  Just 'the bastard'.  Everyone thought he was so perfect back then.  They thought it was noble of him to take such good care of his daughter, his precious little Marguerite that he loved so much.  They sympathized with him as he mourned over his lost wife, that lovely young flower who was taken from the world so early.  
  
Bull shit.  
  
I know exactly who he was and what he did.  I LIVED in that hell known as the Smith mansion.  It seems so innocent, doesn't it?  So Muggle-sounding, even.  Smith.  A nice, sensible, honest name.  But I know what he did.  I watched him use the killing curse on my mother one night when I was four years old, when he found out that she was half-Muggle.  I lived in fear of suffering the same fate, although with all the verbal abuse I often thought that I deserved to die.  I grew up thinking I was nothing.  
  
_  
Cause I'm your creation, I'm your love Daddy  
Grew up to be and do all those sick things you said I'd do  
Well last night I saw you sneak out your window  
With your white hood, Daddy  
What's that say about you?  
  
  
_I wish he could see me now, wish he could see the successful bitch I've become.  I wish he could know that I changed my name from Marguerite Smith to Rita Skeeter, a name just as tasteless and tacky as it's owner.  I once heard that evil begets evil, and it must be true. I'm meaner than the most venomous snake, and I know it.  I've become all the things that Daddy dearest wanted me to be.  I took after him.  Many times, I watched him leaving the house late at night to sneak away so that no one could trace him from where he disapparated to the Death Eater meetings.  I watched him keeping the sleeves of his robes longer than customary so his Dark Mark wouldn't show.  I watched him.  
  
_  
I'm sloppy, what's that say about you?  
I'm messy, what's that say about you?  
  
  
_I wonder if you're happy now, Daddy.    
  
_  
My bones are tired, Daddy.  
_  



End file.
